


Harry Understands

by hamildooodles



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda, Historical RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26901301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamildooodles/pseuds/hamildooodles
Summary: A one-shot about John's struggles through his lifetime from Harry's point of view.
Relationships: Francis Kinloch (1755–1826)/John Laurens
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Harry Understands

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: self-harm

“Jacky, there’s a bunny outside the window! Me and Jemmy found a bunny Jack! It’s outside the window in the grass…Jacky?”

There’s lots of loud yelling when I run down the stairs to get my big brother. Daddy would yell at me if he were here about running down the stairs, but Jacky would just expect that I’d do it anyway and tell me to at least hold the handrail. He will usually sigh and smile a bit, then probably run down them with us too. But it doesn’t sound like he’s smiling now. 

“How dare you John! HOW!” 

My shoulders tense up at Mr. Francis’s loud voice and the use of my brother’s real name. He always calls him nicknames like the rest of us. He calls him Laurie, usually. And Jacky tells us that we shouldn’t call him Laurie too, that it’s Mr. Francis’s special nickname for him.

I hear muffled crying and screaming, like how we used to scream into pillows because it was funny to hear your voice feel so loud but sound so quiet. My eyes fill up as I press my ear to the door. Jacky doesn’t sound like he thinks the sound is silly right now. 

“Why would you do this again? Come on, just talk to me, you know that’s why I’m here. I’m yours for that reason.”

Muffled noises in the pillow make me press my ear harder on the door. Please don’t cry, Jacky. It’s so sad when he cries. Sadder than Jemmy’s cries. Maybe even sadder than when mommy used to cry. 

I think I hear Mr. Francis say ‘come here,’ but I’m not sure. I close my eyes because I’ve heard that when you stop using one of your senses, the others become more powerful. I just need supersonic hearing like that bunny Jacky needs to see.

“Lemme see your wri—”

“You don’t give a fuck about me, Kinloch!” 

I feel the pounding in my head from my heartbeat. Jacky never says bad words. Jacky never calls Mr. Francis by his formal name. 

“Gooddamnit John!”

Jacky screams, growls nearly, and I hear the clatter of something metal hit the floor. 

I feel my nails digging into my palms. I’m so scared. I’m so so so scared. I’m nearly sobbing, but keeping my cries quiet. All of us kids all have perfected quiet sobbing together when we used to hold each other at night, hiding from Daddy when he would be mean. Jacky isn’t even trying to be quiet though, and that’s what scares me the most.

Mr. Francis’s tone is quiet when he starts to speak again. “Look at you. This mess of a man is what you’ve come to. My God!” I hear Jacky panting, and involuntarily, I find I’m doing the same with the tension in the room. 

“How can you live with yourself?” Mr. Francis screams, so loudly that it hurts my ear on the other side of the door. “Oh that’s right, you fucking won’t!”

I slam the door open and we all freeze. Mr. Francis stands with balled fists and Jacky sits in a heap on the floor, clutching a pillow to his chest. I see a small knife strewn across the room. 

“Harry—”

“Did you hurt Jacky?” I cry, finally seeing all the red cuts on my brother’s arms. 

…

“Harry, please open up, please.”

“Why should I?” I bark. I don’t even know why I’m mad at Jacky. I just wanted him to see a bunny. And I guess I just don’t want to hear the truth about Mr. Francis. I thought he was a good guy. 

Jemmy stares at me with a sad look. I told him to keep watch on the bunny, but bunnies have such good hearing, and he ran away when he heard the yelling from downstairs. 

“Because I love you and I need to explain something to you,” he says, sounding sad still from outside the door. 

I move over and put my hand on the doorknob. If Mr. Francis stands beside him, I’m slamming the door. 

I poke one eye out. It’s just Jacky. His eyes are all red and puffy. He reaches down to grab my hand and I let him. Normally I’m getting too old to hold hands with my big brother, but I think he needs it more than I. 

When we’re outside, I sit next to him in the grass and listen to him ramble. “Please don’t be mad at Mr. Francis, okay? He did nothing wrong, you must know that. It’s just a little fight we got into and everything’s my fault. But it’s settled now, we apologized and things are good now, okay?”

“Why’d you say the swear words? And why’d he yell at you? And why—”

“Harry, please, everything’s better now. I’m sorry, I never would have used the bad words if I knew you were listening—”

“What happened to your arms?”

Jacky looks like he’s about to cry again. He wraps his hands around his stomach and waist like he’s still hugging that pillow. Jacky would give me a hug if I was hugging a pillow like him. So I pull his hands off and put me there instead. 

“Nothing, Harry,” he chokes. “I umm, I dropped a glass from Francis’s cabinet and he got mad. It was one of his special ones from home, remember? He’s from South Carolina too.”

“Really?” I say, head still buried in his chest. Jacky doesn’t know which statement I’m questioning. 

“Yup, just like our home far away in America.” 

I sigh into him. I’ve broken glasses at home before, and even though Daddy was super mad, I don’t remember glass cutting me in perfect lines. I don’t remember it cutting me at all. But I stay hugging him, head pressed into his warm chest. I can’t look at him because I’m secretly afraid Jacky can mind-read sometimes. I think it’s a big brother power. I mean, I guess I haven’t developed it with Jemmy yet. But if I look up at him, he might be able to see the image of the knife that’s stuck in my head. And then we’d both be sadder. 

… 

But I was his age that day, only 19, on the day I heard that my brother died in battle. I’m nearly 52 now, and that day when I was just a little kid still springs into my memory too often. My son bears his Christian name and I’ve seen Jack’s wonderful traits in him as I watch him grow. He’d never know his Uncle Jacky, yet I suppose no one truly did. Perhaps Jemmy knew him best of all when he was young. Or perhaps it had been the man who died just over 10 years ago who had the most knowledge of my brother’s bottomless heart and tortured mind. 

I heard about the letters when the man’s son, who also bears the same name as my brother, sent me a letter with copies of the enclosed letters. He asked what I might have known about his father’s potential lover, my dear older brother. At first I laughed: this man was married for years! His Eliza bears the same name as my own dear wife. But then…Jacky was married too, after Frances was conceived. I began to wonder if John Church’s name was a namesake to my dear Jacky. 

Still convinced it was bogus, especially so from a man whom I’d never spoken to, it took some time to bear the confidence to read the letters. Back then it felt like opening a wound of his memory that I thought I had grieved enough of already, more than 30 years gone. I cannot forget the chills that spread over my forearms as I read my brother’s handwriting again — it had not changed a bit from the time he was a teen. I tried time and time again to read their correspondence, but the ink on the page would warp and become illegible every time I thought about him in pain and hiding from the world. A certain letter, perhaps the most difficult for me to ingest, the other man begs my brother to not cave into death on his own account. It was then, I think, when I knew what Francis meant to my Jacky, and I began to understand the events of that day in my memory.


End file.
